Sonia Ahmed photos
The outside of Elm City Market Tuesday afternoon.
A "closed" message now hanging at 275 South Orange.
Less than a month after celebrating a ribbon cutting at a new smaller location on Orange Street, Elm City Market is now closed.
A representative from the building’s ownership said that the closure hopefully is just temporary.
Word of the grocery store’s potential closure started making the rounds online on Reddit and X in recent days, as New Haveners speculated about why the market appeared to no longer be in business.
On Tuesday, the Independent observed a screen in the window of the 275 South Orange St. storefront that read “Elm City Market is now closed”.
Inside the store, as of Tuesday afternoon, the fridges were covered with blackout curtains, there were some empty shelves, and no one inside. Most of the shelves were still stocked, and the cashier’s station had some viral Dubai chocolate. The market’s kitchen and front desk area were also empty, with no employees or staff in sight.
Will Cannon — a development manager with Spinnaker Real Estate Partners, which owns the building where Elm City Market is located — said he’s still trying to figure out what happened to the store.
“I think they’re trying to stay open,” he said. “We’re hoping it’s a temporary closure.”
Cannon said that he has spoken with Elm City Market CEO Kurt Luttecke. From that conversation, Cannon believes, “they’re just trying to stay open on a temporary basis.”
Luttecke did not respond to the Independent’s requests for comment by the publication time of this article. The market has also not posted on their Instagram or Facebook for a couple of weeks.
And when the Independent sent Elm City Market a message via Facebook on Tuesday, this reporter received the following automated message:
“ ‘Thank You for the Support — We’ve Closed’ After many wonderful years of serving the community, our market has closed. We’re so thankful for your support, smiles, and loyalty over the years. we are maintaining the page for the time being but will not be responding to posts or comments. Thank You”
Cannon said that he was last at Elm City Market on Thursday. “They were open for at least a few hours” on that day, he said. He’s not sure when they’ll be open next.
Elm City Market officially opened at 275 South Orange — a mixed-use building constructed atop the former Coliseum site — on July 11. They did so ten months after vacating their longtime home in a much larger space on the ground floor of 360 State St., where Elm City Market had been located for more than a decade. The move saw Elm City Market downsize from a roughly 10,000 square-foot space to a new 3,000 square-foot space.
The front desk receptionist at Anthem — the name of the 200-unit apartment building where Elm City Market is located — said on Tuesday that she was left in the dark by the store, and only found out what was going on by Googling the market with her colleagues and seeing the “permanently closed” tag.
Blacked out fridges inside the market.
A screenshot of the automated Facebook message from Elm City Market.